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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 5, 1992                   TAG: 9202050405
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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QUAYLE'S POINT

FUNNY, STATE Sen. Madison Marye doesn't look like Dan Quayle. But the Shawsville Democrat and the Republican vice president are of similar view: There are too darn many lawyers.

For several months now, Quayle has argued that the crowded bar, with its bent for litigiousness, is gumming up the nation's court system. The veep questions whether America really needs 70 percent of the world's lawyers - or one attorney for every 335 citizens.

Marye questions why there's one lawyer for every 330 Virginians. The state has about 16,000 practicing attorneys, or about the same number as all of Japan.

Marye, a farmer, suggests that Virginia's lawyer farms - its law schools - might do well to weed, prune and cut back on their crops. Shucks, he says, "it's getting so you need a lawyer to go right around with you to protect you from other lawyers."

The American Bar Association, which has not taken kindly to the vice president's criticisms, does not seem frightened that Marye is now on its case. But our sense is that neither Quayle nor Marye is hearing many interruptions of "Objection: irrelevant" from the public.

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